General discussion thread for the Floating Castle RP. Comments, questions, suggestions, complaints. This is the place for it.

Posting Rules:

Each quest will be assigned to a pair of players. No one plays alone in the Main Thread.

Each pair will have to write a single text detailing their completion of the quest objective, involving both characters.

The actual writing style and method of writing is free choice of the players collaborating on the post.

The single text is limited to 1 forum post, or 60.000 characters. It does not matter which player makes the post.

If multiple quests are assigned at once, the order of completion is not relevant, as each resolution will be contained within a single post. To that effect, it is recommended to include the quest name in the message.

If, at any point, something is described as being made of Space Rocks, it means do not pick a fight. No matter what, how or when. The characters will not be able to win a direct confrontation. Work around it, trying to force your way will end in failure.

Main Thread quests will be under a time limit of one week for completion.

If no post is made within the time limit, the quest will be declared failed. The quest takers can request a drop at any point during the time window should they believe it to be necessary.

There is no penalty for dropping a quest. If for some reason you cannot or do not want to do it, just say so and it will be assigned to another duo.

Each quest completion will award the duo with loot or prizes of some nature. This will allow customization over time, making characters who play actively more unique in compassion to basic character sheets.

Players may join in at any time and step away as they see fit. Any and all characters will have the same global level of power, with the generic character sheet always as a baseline for the current quest difficulty. Unique bonuses gotten from previous quests will not be reset if you need to spend some time away from the game, and you can always return to find your character with all the generic skills scaled to the current game floor.

Have fun. Yes, that is a rule. Obey it.

Last edited by Pixelmage on Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:27 pm, edited 14 times in total.

Normal people are the easiest to manipulate. Too smart and they have an annoying tendency to catch wind of your plans, too dumb and, in the words of a certain pirate, "You can never tell when they are about to do something incredibly...stupid."

That's something I have to address right? Well, this one will be mostly like the Fight RP. Everyone can join. If you don't have the time, or anything, you simply won't be assigned to a quest. Of course, once the quest is up, 48h sounds like a good time limit to write it, perhaps more if the duo is in very different timezones, but you don't really have to be playing up on all quests all the time.

I like this more as a writing exercise. To force us to flex our writing muscles and work together with people to mesh styles and learn even more. Not as a full time commitment or something to be updated at breakneck speed.

First post updated.I'll probably open up the character sheet thread soon, with a fluff-free model. Oh, and: DO NOT POST COMMENTS ON THE CHARACTER SHEET THREAD!Xana didn't require this, but if you want to comment on someone's sheet, bring it to this thread! Let's keep the sheet thread as a clean resource as this format will require updating it every once in a while.

Character sheet model updated to reflect some considerations regarding weapon choice.Since the first few quests will result in getting to unlock just that, there's little point in restricting the choice in character creation. After all, it is possible that you create a sheet without the weapon you want and don't get to quest before it becomes available, in which case you'd edit it in and never have to use the restricted arsenal.

That said, if you pick a Scimitar and someone else picks a Falchion: They are both 1 handed swords. No functional difference between them. Sure, your description will be different, your movements may be different, but functionally they are the same thing. This is the same argument I used for the throwing knives.

I'll reserve "Virtual Reality, didn't program that into this place's physics" to justify it if I must.

On the writing. I can see this happening in two ways. One is playing with megaposts, the other is back and forth PoV posts. Looking at each one.

First the multiple posts. This model is based on the Fight RP, where a duo is assigned to a quest and each player posts his action incing forward to the objective, then the other person gives another push. While viable and easier to play, I don't like this idea for this particular RP for a number of reasons.

To start, as the Fight RP shows, our styles vary. A lot. Since this is intended as a collaborative work, writing in turns will create disjunctions in the narrative. Someone can do something that the other person is not ready to follow and conflicting ideas would be settled by the first person to post a game maker move. Easier to write, but not really in the spirit of the RP.

A second issue is that it would be necessary to run only one quest at a time. Or have a thread for the main quests, and a quest thread for each guild, assuming everyone splits up into guilds, even then, some guild might be inactive while another has people ready to play but has to wait on another duo of the same guild to finish their ongoing quest. And on the off chance that you have to drop out of a quest, it leaves a mass of posts in place that don't count as a completion.

The other option, making a single post narrating the completion of the quest. This is sitting together, meshing ideas and then writing out the resolution as one post. It is how we do it for collaborative posts in the First RP, we do split it into 2 posts there to not mess up the turn order, but since this won't have that requirement, I'll establish a limit of one post per quest.

Why? Well, first, save for Mimsy-included duos it's not likely anyone will even reach the character limit. Consider it a challenge to be laconic Mimsy.

Actually writing together means you'll work together. Share ideas and mesh styles into a single flowing form. This will make for better narratives and the whole point of this RP is to work together in the first place. One of the duo posts the full text. Does not matter who, as long as it is one of the writers. In this format, I can easily run multiple quests simultaneously, announcing the quests and the duos for each turn, the resolutions get posted as they are completed. Have the first line be the quest name and that's it. Each post represents one quest story.

Another advantage is that if you need to drop a quest after accepting it, no half written stories will be scattered around and I can simply edit the announcement assigning it to someone else.

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Regarding Quest length: nothing will be so big you'll have write a novel. Don't worry. Tasks will be small enough to handle without being forced to write too much. A one post limit hard caps it really nicely too, though I doubt even reaching it will be necessary.

To illustrate, say there will be a castle siege:

Take control of a patch of land and establish an advanced outpost.

The actual siege. You have to break through the defenses and get inside.

You're in, take on the guards, seize control of the main keep and make the castle yours.

Each of the 3 steps would be a quest on its own. And not necessarily assigned to the same duos. A siege involves an army, so each step is seen from a different pair's point of view. And obviously, step two would only be announced after step one was successfully completed.

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One other point to address: There are no penalties for dropping a quest. If you suddenly got too busy, or the pair is not really meshing well due to timezones or the styles are completely incompatible, if you create a sheet now and only get free time to play after we get to floor 30... Everyone will be on the same global level. With generic character sheets that will be up to the same speed with everyone else so you can join in at any point.

But why? Well, I'm not punishing anyone for not playing. I'll instead reward people for playing. Each quest you complete, along with any global benefits, will award some minor nuts and bolts to your character. Keep completing quests and you'll eventually have a very custom, very unique character. It will take time, but minor tweaks will add up to each character tracing his own story. While everyone begins generic, it will not remain so for the whole game.

Yes, I know I ramble a lot, but it helps me think and ground my reasoning, so bear with me here. Newbie GM and all. Once the RP starts rolling I'll make a rule summary all nice and easy to read without all the rambling.

You can carry stuff any way you want. Mid fight and an actual fighting stance are a bit more serious than that. He sprite is a pose to look badass and invoke Rule of Cool. Does not mean he'll be waving a BFS like it was a feather.

Pixelmage wrote:You can carry stuff any way you want. Mid fight and an actual fighting stance are a bit more serious than that. He sprite is a pose to look badass and invoke Rule of Cool. Does not mean he'll be waving a BFS like it was a feather.

I know, I was just summonign Fridge Logic. But his guild looks cool, can we be in more than one guild?

Dolphins are some of the smartest animals, yes, but by human standards… Let's say you should praise the god that forces them to stay handless and underwater.

No.See, functionally guilds don't really mean anything. But, as I'll have to tie people together to write posts, if you make guilds among yourselves, it gives me a guideline to pair people from the same guild as preferable pairings. If you join multiple guilds, it makes it no different from playing solo, which means any pairing is ok.

This also does not mean that you'll only play with the people of your guild. Given enough time, everyone will have a shot at playing a duo with everyone else if both want to. What I get from this is a way to be able to make the choices more easily, that's all. As a "team" everyone is working together to clear the Castle.